更新日：2010年7月5日

Shibusawa Tatsuhiko

Scholar of French literature, critic and novelist, Shibusawa Tatsuhiko was born in Tokyo in 1928. His real name was Tatsuo.

As a student of the school of French literature at the University of Tokyo, he became an enthusiastic advocate of surrealism, the vanguard art movement that had started in France after World War I. He was especially attracted to Andre Breton, a central figure of the movement. This led him eventually to learn of the Marquis de Sade’s existence and gave him a clear indication of the direction he should now take. After translating Jean Cocteau’s "Le Grand Ecart" in 1954, he began to introduce French literature to Japanese readers through his translations. In 1959, he published a translation of Sade’s "L’Histoire de Juliette; ou, Les Prosperites du vice," which dealt a blow to his translation work because of an obscenity charge. He continued, however, to introduce Sade’s writing, as well as making active contributions to other areas through his essays, art criticism and studies of medieval demonology.

He also broke new ground in fiction in 1981 with the publication of a fantasy, "Karakusa Monogatari" (Karakusa story). Other novels include "Utsuro Bune" (Hollow ship) and "Takaoka Shinno Kokai-ki" (Prince Takaoka’s sailing records).

Shibusawa lived in Kamakura from 1946, first at Komachi; he moved to Meigetsu-yato, Yamanouchi, in 1966, where he continued to live until his death in 1987 at the age of 59.